Tourism specialization in emerging Latin American destinations: exploring the algorithm for long-lived and inclusive socio-economic development

Abstract

The notable growth of tourism in emerging destinations generates controversy regarding the socioeconomic benefits it brings to the population. The objectives of this work are to contrast the capacity of the tourist phenomenon to become a driver of socioeconomic development in emerging Latin American destinations and to analyze the effect of tourism specialization on the living conditions of the population. For this, an econometric model with panel data has been estimated, based on a sample of 20 emerging destinations between 2005 and 2015. The results show that both tourism and non-tourism specialization have a direct and significant on the conditions of socioeconomic development of Latin American destinations, suggesting the convenience of designing formulas for socioeconomic development based on a productive integration with other complementary sectors intensive in knowledge and capital. The contributions of this work offer new empirical evidence that proves the relevance of Latin American economies to bet on tourism as a dynamic activity of their economies to generate employment and wealth, which can also serve to boost and bet on other complementary sectors.